Earth Science

A Remote View into the Classroom: Analyzing Teacher Use of Digitally Enhanced Educative Curriculum Materials in Support of Student Learning

When integrated into online curriculum modules for students, educative curriculum materials (ECMs) can enhance teachers’ enactment of these modules. This study investigated (1) the use of digitally enhanced ECMs built into an online plate tectonics curriculum module by teachers with different backgrounds and teaching experience, (2) the relationship between teachers’ use of ECMs and student learning gains, and (3) teacher reflections on the value of the ECMs they used.

Author/Presenter

Trudi Lord

Hee-Sun Lee

Paul Horwitz

Sarah Pryputniewicz

Amy Pallant

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

When integrated into online curriculum modules for students, educative curriculum materials (ECMs) can enhance teachers’ enactment of these modules. This study investigated (1) the use of digitally enhanced ECMs built into an online plate tectonics curriculum module by teachers with different backgrounds and teaching experience, (2) the relationship between teachers’ use of ECMs and student learning gains, and (3) teacher reflections on the value of the ECMs they used.

Socio-Scientific Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Comparing In-person and Virtual Science Learning Using Model-Evidence Link Diagrams

Science learning is an important part of the K-12 educational experience, as well as in the lives of students. This study considered students’ science learning as they engaged in the instruction of scientific issues with social relevance. With classroom environments radically changing during the COVID-19 pandemic, our study adapted to teachers and students as they were forced to change from more traditional, in-person instructional settings to virtual, online instruction settings.

Author/Presenter

Nancy Gans

Vivian Zohery

Joshua B. Jaffe

Anissa Ahmed

Luke Kim

Doug Lombardi

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

Science learning is an important part of the K-12 educational experience, as well as in the lives of students. This study considered students’ science learning as they engaged in the instruction of scientific issues with social relevance. With classroom environments radically changing during the COVID-19 pandemic, our study adapted to teachers and students as they were forced to change from more traditional, in-person instructional settings to virtual, online instruction settings.

Teaching Risk and Uncertainty in a Changing World

While tragedy has struck an inordinate number of students in the past several years, not all areas of the country are at risk for every natural hazard all the time. To avoid having students feel like Chicken Little under a falling sky, the GeoHazard project uses simulations, data, experimentation, and scientific argumentation to teach about risk and uncertainty. We have created three scaffolded online modules focused on hurricanes, wildfires, and inland flooding to help teach these concepts.

Author/Presenter

Trudi Lord

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2022
Short Description

While tragedy has struck an inordinate number of students in the past several years, not all areas of the country are at risk for every natural hazard all the time. To avoid having students feel like Chicken Little under a falling sky, the GeoHazard project uses simulations, data, experimentation, and scientific argumentation to teach about risk and uncertainty. We have created three scaffolded online modules focused on hurricanes, wildfires, and inland flooding to help teach these concepts. Through investigations using both simulations and real-world data, these curriculum units introduce students to the scientific factors responsible for these hazards and provide practice in interpreting forecasts.

A Map that Shows Earth Rocks!

Concord Consortium’s new Earth Rocks Map displays a generalized representation of Earth’s geology, focused primarily on the distribution of the three major rock types (igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary). What makes this map different is that it strips out information about geologic eras, highlighting the distribution of rocks found on Earth’s surface.

Lord, T. & Pallant, A. (2022, November 21). A map that shows Earth rocks! Concord Consortium Blog. https://concord.org/blog/a-map-that-shows-earth-rocks/

Author/Presenter

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2022
Short Description

Concord Consortium’s new Earth Rocks Map displays a generalized representation of Earth’s geology, focused primarily on the distribution of the three major rock types (igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary). What makes this map different is that it strips out information about geologic eras, highlighting the distribution of rocks found on Earth’s surface.

Innovate to Mitigate: Microgenesis of Student Design and Rationale in a Crowdsourcing Competition to Mitigate Global Warming

The Innovate to Mitigate project adapts crowdsourcing to support project-based STEM education, posing design challenges for secondary-school students. Students are charged with designing feasible innovative strategies to mitigate CO2 emissions and thus global warming. The paper draws on data from 3 project teams. The paper presents evidence that a web-mediated community of practice supports STEM learning of concepts and STEM practices and examines conditions under which the environment can enable an account of microgenesis of that learning.

Author/Presenter

Brian Drayton

Gillian Puttick

Santiago Gasca

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2022
Short Description

The Innovate to Mitigate project adapts crowdsourcing to support project-based STEM education, posing design challenges for secondary-school students. Students are charged with designing feasible innovative strategies to mitigate CO2 emissions and thus global warming. The paper draws on data from 3 project teams. The paper presents evidence that a web-mediated community of practice supports STEM learning of concepts and STEM practices and examines conditions under which the environment can enable an account of microgenesis of that learning.

Wildfire Module Now Freely Available

Today’s students are exposed to news about wildfires on an all-too-regular basis. An increasingly larger portion of those students live in areas where wildfire risks are high or where smoke has reduced the air quality. The GeoHazard project has designed, developed, and tested an online wildfire curriculum module for middle and high school students that addresses the factors that influence wildfires, as well as the risks and impacts that wildfires bring to people and their communities.

Author/Presenter

Trudi Lord

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2021
Short Description

Today’s students are exposed to news about wildfires on an all-too-regular basis. An increasingly larger portion of those students live in areas where wildfire risks are high or where smoke has reduced the air quality. The GeoHazard project has designed, developed, and tested an online wildfire curriculum module for middle and high school students that addresses the factors that influence wildfires, as well as the risks and impacts that wildfires bring to people and their communities.

Revised Hurricane Module Now Available

Climate change, and the rise of the natural hazards that climate change brings, has been at the top of news feeds every week over the past year. Extreme events such as floods, droughts, and wildfires are expected to increase in the future. What does that mean for those of us living in the path of one of these hazards? Our GeoHazard project is exploring this question with middle and high school teachers and students across the country.

Author/Presenter

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2022
Short Description

Climate change, and the rise of the natural hazards that climate change brings, has been at the top of news feeds every week over the past year. Extreme events such as floods, droughts, and wildfires are expected to increase in the future. What does that mean for those of us living in the path of one of these hazards? Our GeoHazard project is exploring this question with middle and high school teachers and students across the country.

Shifting Plates, Shifting Minds: Plate Tectonics Models Designed for Classrooms

Understanding Earth’s tectonic plate system dynamics is complicated though it is the central paradigm to explain transformations of Earth’s surface. The landforms and geodynamic events resulting from plates interacting are too massive to observe at scales of human experience. It is difficult for students to connect plate movements to geologic features like the Andes Mountains and geodynamic events like earthquakes. As such, the conventional teaching of plate tectonics rarely involves student-led systematic explorations.

Author/Presenter

Amy Pallant

Scott McDonald

Hee-Sun Lee

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2020
Short Description

This article introduces a new online curriculum module called “What will Earth look like in 500 million years?” Using two web-based tools, middle and high school students develop understandings of (1) how collective movements associated with a system of plates create the current distribution of landforms found on Earth’s surface, and (2) how earthquakes and volcanoes provide important clues for interactions at plate boundaries.

Everything Happens for a Reason: Developing Causal Mechanistic Reasoning of Plate Tectonics

Our planet’s surface is in constant motion. Large pieces of Earth’s crust and upper mantle, known as tectonic plates, continually move toward and away from each other at a rate of millimeters to centimeters each year. Over geologic time, their relative motions determine everything from the types of boundaries they form to the distribution of rocks and landforms on Earth’s surface and the location and frequency of earthquake and volcanic eruptions.

Author/Presenter

Amy Pallant

Hee-Sun Lee

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2021
Short Description

The goal of our National Science Foundation-funded Geological Models for Exploration of Dynamic Earth (GEODE) project is to help students use plate tectonics as an explanation for the landforms and geological phenomena observed on Earth’s surface.

Models for Developing Explanations of Earth's Dynamic Plate System

Pallant, A., Lord, T., Pryputniewicz, S., & McDonald, S. (2022). Models for developing explanations of earth's dynamic plate system. Science Scope, 45(4), 20-28.

Author/Presenter

Amy Pallant

Trudi Lord

Sarah Pryputniewicz

Scott McDonald

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2022
Short Description

This article describes a free online plate tectonics curriculum module (PT module), which offers a unique approach with two innovative tools that allow students to make connections between real-world data and plate tectonics models.